Nara Burnu (Turkish "Cape Nara"),[1][2] formerly Nağara Burnu,[3] in English Nagara Point,[4] and in older sources Point Pesquies,[3] is a headland on the Anatolian side of the Dardanelles Straits, north of Çanakkale.
It is the narrowest and, with 113 metres (371 ft), the deepest, section of the Dardanelles Strait.
As a result, it is also the point where the surface current from the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea is the strongest, with 1.5 to 2 times the normal rate, occasionally reaching the speed of 5 nautical miles (9.3 km) per hour.
The undercurrent is 0.5–5 nautical miles (0.93–9.26 km) per hour, flowing in the opposite direction.
[7] Due to the narrowness of the straits at this point, the site was often chosen for crossings of the Dardanelles by armies, beginning with the Achaemenid monarch Xerxes I during his Invasion of Greece in 480 BC, who deployed pontoon bridges to allow his army to cross on foot.